


Nothing to Lose

by timelostdoctor



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, doctor without hope, non-graphic decapitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29530896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelostdoctor/pseuds/timelostdoctor
Summary: What happens when the Doctor has nothing left to lose?
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Nothing to Lose

It wasn’t their first tight scrape. It would hardly be their tightest. Hopefully. Sure, all seemed a bit dier at the second, but that was only because the Doctor hadn’t put her plan into action. And the Doctor had a plan, Yaz was sure of it. Because if the Doctor didn’t have a plan, well…

That wasn’t something Yaz wanted to think about. 

Besides, what did these guys have? Some big guns and future tech? Lots of exploding bits? Some sort of army? The Doctor was better than all that. Even if they were both restrained while Yaz was led away into a dark and scary looking building. Even if Yaz was fighting against their hold, six soldiers against one woman wasn't a fair match. Yaz centered her thoughts again. The Doctor had never met her match. The Doctor would save her. 

The Doctor  _ would _ save her.

They led her into a well-lit room and into instant confusion. It was almost like a theater stage. A clean metal floor and, making Yaz redouble her efforts to escape, a guillotine with a camera pointed directly at it. On the far side was a screen and audio blaring the events happening outside. The General who had ordered both Yaz and the Doctor to be restrained was talking now.

“Doctor,” she yelled, though she doubted the Doctor could hear her. No, she knew she couldn’t. The General as all but yelling in the Doctor’s face. “You will help me or she will die.” He nodded to a man to the left of him and suddenly Yaz was looking at her own terrified face. The soldiers who had taken her away forced her to her knees.

The Doctor sprang into action at once. 

“Let her go. Now. If you harm a hair on her head I will not help you.” She tried to step forward but the soldiers held her back. “Yaz!” The Doctor looked at the screen and Yaz could see the panic in her face. “Yaz!”

“I’m okay, Doctor,” Yaz said. She was proud of how strong and clear her voice was.

The General laughed. “Not for long she isn’t.” He made a slicing movement across his neck and Yaz was forced to bend and place her head in the guillotine. 

The Doctor attempted to surge forward again. “No! No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll help. Just stop. Don’t hurt her.”

Yaz had relaxed just a fraction of a second when the General spoke again. “Hm, no. Where’s the fun in that? Drop the blade.” Yaz screwed her eyes shut, not wanting to see what happened next when...nothing happened. Still, the Doctor was screaming. 

The soldiers released her and stood back, blocking her way to the door. She squinted at the scene outside. The Doctor had been released and had fallen to all fours, her body shaking. And there on the screen the Doctor was being shown, was a clearly decapitated Yaz. Her hand flew to her throat. “I don’t understand,” Yaz said.

One of the soldiers laughed. “It’s a ploy he uses. Fighting a civil war isn’t easy so if you show you mean business, then you get what you want.”

On screen the General stooped down and put his hand under the Doctor’s chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Now then, about my weapons.”

The Doctor stood slowly. Her face was twisted into a snarl as she looked at the General. “Yeah. Weapons.” Then she laughed. “I am interested in your weapons, you’re right.” She started walking around and the soldiers made to grab her, but the General waved them off. The Doctor looked at the screen again and Yaz saw her sag, saw her fist clench at her sides, and then she turned. “First, though, we should talk. One soldier to another.” The Doctor flung her arm around the General. “See, you made a grave error. My friends are off limits. You don’t hurt them. And you,  _ General _ , did a lot more than hurt Yaz.” She turned and faced the soldiers gathered around them, giving the camera a clear view of her face. She smiled but that smile wasn’t one Yaz had ever wanted to see again. It was cold. Rational. Not filled with warmth and mirth but anger. Rage. Yaz had only seen the Doctor wear it one other time and that had ended with a Tardis and an invasion of Daleks crumpling. 

The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver and scanned a few of the weapons nearby, checking the readings. She talked as she did so, making sure the General stayed closeby. “I wanted to be a force for good in the universe. I did. I tried so hard. My friends help me keep that in perspective.” She adjusted a setting on the screwdriver and scanned again. With a nod she moved on. Even so, I wasn’t always. My wife once told me the word Doctor in some cultures means warrior. I used to call myself the Oncoming Storm. I tried so hard to get away from that.”

The Doctor paused and tilted her head. “Yaz was the only thing I had left. My planet is burned. My identity, my very being, is in question. I’m the last of my kind and maybe I was never even one of them. Do you know what it feels like to have nothing to lose, General? Because that is where I am.” She tapped a pressure meter on one of the tanks. 

“So, General, let me ask you this. Closer or further?”

The General looked confused. “What?”

“Eh, I don’t really care what you think anyway. Further it is. Gotta give myself time to get to the Tardis.” The Doctor turned and looked at the screen again. “I’m sorry, Yaz.”

Then she held her sonic in the air and far away something exploded. “That’s the thing about everything being linked like you have it. I get access to one, I get access to all.” She laughed as another exploded. 

Yaz barely had time to take in what was happening when she was yanked back through the doors and out into the open. “What...what’s going on?” Another explosion sounded. This one she couldn’t hear but she felt the ground beneath her feet shudder. The soldiers were all calling for the Doctor, rushing her forward. 

The crowds parted for them. They headed straight for the Doctor. She strode away from them. Shoulders set. Not looking back. The soldiers released Yaz and she sprang forward catching the Doctor’s arm. The Doctor flung her arm back with enough force to throw Yaz to the ground. She spun with a snarl and eyes like midnight. Then she took Yaz in and she softened. She went from stone to water in an instant. “Yaz.” The word was a breath, a prayer, a ghost. 

Yaz nodded and scrambled to her feet. “Doctor.”

Slowly the Doctor reached out and touched her face, fingertips just barely grazing her cheek. Then another explosion happened and the Doctor jumped, eyes wide. Then her eyes fell on Yaz again and they were as unreadable as ever. Without a word the Doctor grabbed Yaz’s hand and ran to the Tardis, the door bolting shut behind them. 

“I can’t fix it. I can’t undo it.” The Doctor was shaking as she lurched around the Tardis controls. “I shouldn’t have done it. It shouldn’t have been an option.” Yaz was struck still to see tears rolling down the Doctor’s face. The Tardis started taking off and the Doctor crumpled to the floor. “What did I do?”

Yaz carefully made her way to the Doctor and sat next to her, shoulder to shoulder. She didn’t know what to say or do to make the Doctor feel better. She didn’t know if she should. What had happened, what the Doctor had done, in her name. In Yaz’s name. 

The Doctor finally looked over to Yaz and Yaz met her gaze. Neither of them spoke. Until finally. “I will understand if you want to go home now. Like Graham and Ryan.”

Everything the Doctor had said was swirling through Yaz’s head. She picked at a thread. “How can I? If I’m the only thing between the you I thought I knew and that.”

The Doctor shook her head. “No, Yaz. It isn’t like that.”

Yaz wanted to be angry, to raise her voice and fight, but she found it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in her. Her words came out matter-of-fact.“Really? Because that’s what you said.” 

The Doctor shifted to her knees, her hands held up in front of her. “No. No, Yaz. You choosing to leave, that’s your choice. That you with air in your lungs and you heart still beating. That’s you gettin to live your life. I would never take that from you and when I thought someone had I--” The Doctor choked. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. That used to be me. I did that sort of thing, played at being a god.” The Doctor’s hands clenched again. “I thought I had moved beyond that. I’m sorry.”

When Yaz didn’t say anything, the Doctor stood and left the consol room, leaving Yaz to her whirling thoughts. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there but her butt was numb when the door to the consol room opened again. The Doctor carried over a mug of steaming tea and sat it beside her. Just before she could scamper off like a wounded dog, Yaz called out to her and patted the space beside her.

“If I’m going to keep traveling with you, Doctor,” Yaz started, staring straight into the Doctor’s eyes, “I am going to have to know what I’m getting myself into. Not the adventures, not the life threatening situations. That I have a handle on. I mean who I’m with. I’m going to have to know you.”

The Doctor swallowed and looked forward. Yaz didn’t say anything else. She sipped at her tea and watched. 

With a trembling voice the Doctor said, “Okay. Anything.”

“An easy one, for now. More will come.”

The Doctor nodded though she eyed Yaz warily.

“Do you care so much for me that you would really do that?” The answer was obvious. It laid just hours behind them. Still, the Doctor nodded. 

“I would give the universe for you, Yaz.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a whole new writing experience for me so let me know what you think. How were the characters? How was the story? How was the writing itself? I welcome any and all feedback.


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